The Mouse that Saved the West [antikvár]

CHAPTER The Count of Mountjoy, deep in thought, was lying on a huge couch in his bedroom in the castle of Grand Fenwick examining the ceiling. The ceiling was decorated in a design of red lions, white unicorns and yellow roses. It was the work of one Derek or Dennis of Pirenne (1400-circa 1467), who had died in some chivalric scuffle with a knight of Vignon over a lady of quality. The exact date of his death seemed to have been deliberately obscured to protect his slayer or some other secret. The ceiling was twenty feet above the floor, which Mountjoy regarded as reasonable, for he was a man of extensive vision. As a boy he had loved to lie on the same couch when the bedroom was his father's and indulge his fantasies among the lions and unicorns and roses. He dreamed, then, of knights and maidens, and the glint of armor in a wintry sun and the ancient shout "k Mountjoy! 11